1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method of detecting a vehicle in the vicinity, and more particularly, to a technique for detecting a vehicle in a blind spot or in a location behind an obstacle via a received signal strength indication (RSSI) in order to estimate a driving direction of the detected vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a vehicle is equipped with an interior rear view mirror and left and right side view mirrors to enable a driver to have a frontward, rearward or sideward field of view. However, such mirrors cannot provide a full field of view, and thus blind spots often occurs on the left and right sides of the vehicle. In these blind spots an object is not visible to the driver in the left and right side view mirrors.
In order to improve visibility in blind spots, a supplemental mirror can be used depending on a driver's preference. However, the supplemental mirror distracts may distract the driver because they need to view the supplemental mirror separately and therefore must take their eyes off of the road for a longer period of time.
Meanwhile, with the advancement of image processing techniques, those skilled in the art have been able to provide a wider field of view to the driver by installing an object detection means (e.g., a camera) on the front and rear sides of the vehicle in order to display a photographed image of the object to the driver.
However, this method is mainly used to provide frontward and rearward scenes to aid the driver in parking such as a forward moving event or a rear backup event and is not able to provide any further driver assistance when the vehicle is being driven. Particularly, the method is not able to provide for decreased visibility in blind spots on the left and right sides of the vehicle.
In addition, when the vehicle is traveling, the driver needs to be able to identify a location or a distance to other vehicles in the vicinity and, when changing lanes, the driver needs to check whether there are any other vehicles within the adjacent lanes. If the driver changes lanes without accurately identifying the location or the distance to the other vehicles in the vicinity, an accident can occur.